Hasta La Gadget!

The woods may be lovely, dark and deep, but they’re also dangerously unpredictable. That’s why the University of Central Lancashire is looking to improve search and rescue technology with AeroSee, a project that incorporates drones to locate missing hikers. The lightweight aircraft, provided by E-Migs, are equipped with cameras that transmit video to nearby ground stations. Analysis is then crowd-sourced by search agents, who scour the images for missing persons, like a high-stakes Where’s Waldo. And that’s where you come in. Tomorrow, July 25th at 12:30PM GMT (7:30AM ET), UCLan will launch a simulated mission where you can log in to its site to scour images for a survivor. The fastest virtual savior will top the leader board and take home a sweet prize. Want to sign up for the search? Head on over to the source link below.

Filed under: Misc, Alt

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Source: AeroSee

We’ve known about NVIDIA’s plans to bring Kepler to mobile for a few months now, but the component maker offered up an early glimpse of the SoC at SIGGRAPH this week. In terms of power usage, Logan’s use of Kepler architecture translates to one-third the consumption of GPUs currently running in devices like the Retina iPad while wrangling the same renders. Of course, it does have a healthy amount of room to scale up from there for much beefier tasks. The silicon also supports the just announced OpenGL 4.4, OpenGL ES 3.0 and Microsoft’s DirectX11. So, what does all of that translate to in terms of graphics? Project Logan enables the use of advanced rendering and simulation techniques to construct imagery — things like tessellation, advanced lighting and physical simulation, just to name a few. In other words, this allows for PC and console-quality graphics to get cozy on mobile devices. For a look at chip in action, venture on past the break where the Ira demo that was unveiled earlier this year on GeForce GTX Titan GPU-packing desktop is now running on a Logan-equipped mobile device.

Filed under: Cellphones, Misc, Tablets, Mobile, NVIDIA

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Source: NVIDIA

It hasn’t been a particularly quiet quarter for Apple, at least in the announcement department. But, as far actually shipping new products, Q3 of 2013 has been relatively uneventful. Perhaps that’s why the company’s revenues are down to $35.3 billion, from $43.6 billion in Q2. Still, while its revenues are down significantly from the last two quarters, things are pretty stable year-over-year. In fact, it’s enjoyed a small increase over the $35 billion it raked in during Q3 of 2012. Still, while revenues are up, profits are down. $6.9 billion in net income is hardly anything to snub your nose at, but it does represent a notable drop from the $8.8 billion Apple pocketed in the same quarter last year. That’s at least partially attributable to a year-over-year drop in both iPad and Mac sales, though the 31.2 million iPhones sold is a record for the June quarter — up 20 percent from last year. The decline in iPad sales is particularly notable. After selling 17 million iOS tablets in Q3 of 2012 and 19.5 million just last quarter, Apple only managed to sell 14.6 slates in the three month period ending June 30th. Mac sales were down less dramatically, from 4 million to 3.8 million, year-over-year, though those numbers are roughly flat sequentially.

The iPod line continued its rather swift decline in Q3, with sales dropping 19 percent sequentially and 32 percent year-over-year. The impressive uptick in iPhone sales does help balance out the drop, but it appears the writing is on the wall for the product family that helped kick start the digital music revolution. All the blame for Apple’s declining profits can not be blamed on the iPod, however. Sales are down pretty much across the board, both sequentially and year-over-year, with the exception of the iPhone. All the while, Cupertino’s expenses keep increasing.

You’ll find updates and more numbers after the break from Apple’s earnings call.

Filed under: Cellphones, Misc, Mobile, Apple

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Following its successful Kickstarter campaign, Adapteva flashed the production versions of its Parallella “supercomputer” boards in April, penning in a loose summer delivery date. Today, the company reports that the first “beta” units have begun winding their way to backers who pledged at the DEVELOPER, 64-CORE-PLUS and ROLF levels. Other backers should receive their boards by summer’s end “after some final refinements.” For those who missed the crowd-funding window, you too can get a Parallella, as Adapteva has now opened up general pre-orders for the 16-core version on its website. While all Kickstarter-bought boards will bear a Zynq-7020 SoC, new pre-orders are configured with a 7010 as standard, though you can upgrade to the 7020 if you lay down a little more dough. However, newcomers will be treated to “Gen-1” boards, which will offer slight improvements over earlier versions, such as reduced power consumption and an added serial port three-pin header. You’ll find the basic 16-core board going for $99 over at Adapteva’s store, with an expected October delivery date. The company tells us the 64-core version will also be available for public consumption, with pre-orders beginning in Q4 this year.

Filed under: Misc

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Source: GitHub (Gen-1 board specs), Adapteva store

Like The Longines Symphonette before it, Thingiverse’s army of 3D printing enthusiasts don’t rest, so when MakerBot put them to the task of building a better home for wayward birds, they naturally jumped into action. Not to put too fine a point on it, but while we’re still a ways from indoor plumbing and the like, the American Craftsman Bungalow is surely the sort of thing any upwardly mobile winged friend would want to call home. The first place winner gets (fittingly) an Eggbot, some PLA filament, display space at the MakerBot NY store and the admiration of birds everywhere. And if Hitchcock has taught us anything, it’s that you want those buggers on your side. You can download the schematics for all of the winners in the source link below, complete with the standard whistles and bells.

Filed under: Misc, Peripherals

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Source: Thingiverse